Judges Will Again Decide Fate Of Travel Ban

PHOTO: President Trump’s travel ban will again be decided in court. (photo via Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Seattle today on the legality of President Donald Trump’s travel ban and whether previous statements he made are applicable to his executive order.

The judges, all appointed by former President Bill Clinton, will decide for a second time the fate of the controversial ban. It is not known when they will rule after the hearing today concluded.

In late January, the president’s executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries was struck down – as was a revised order in March designed to get around the legal issues of the first ban.

The State of Hawaii successfully argued then that the ban was unconstitutional because of religious animus, specifically that it was aimed at Muslims.

Neal Katyal, representing the State of Hawaii, referred to previous statements made the President while he was on the campaign trail in 2015 in which Trump called for a “complete and total shutdown” of Muslims coming to the United States.

"I think the most important point is if you don't say all these things, you never wind up with an executive order like this, which is why no president has done that," Katyal added. "If you rule for him, you defer to the President in a way that history teaches us is very dangerous. You open the door to so much. … "I think the question is: What would the objective observer view these statements as? And as the district court found, it would view them as the establishment of a disfavored religion of Islam."

But Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, representing Trump and the Justice Dept., said he didn’t believe there was malice aforethought in this case.

"People say things on a campaign trail," Wall told the judges. "We shouldn't start down the road of psychoanalyzing what people meant on the campaign trail."

Wall added that there was no “affirmative showing of bad faith" by Trump.

"Whatever the bad-faith exception is, to say that the commander in chief, head of the executive branch, and multiple members of the Cabinet acted pretextually, I think you ought to require the strongest showing for that kind of remarkable holding."

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